Julie Campiche Quartet, You Matter, Enja ***

The sound of the late Barbara Thompson listening to the saxophonist on appealingly moody opener 'Aquarius' comes to mind here firstly - the sax line in a downbeat dialogue musically with harpist Julie Campiche. It was just the timbre not …

Published: 5 Nov 2022. Updated: 17 months.

The sound of the late Barbara Thompson listening to the saxophonist on appealingly moody opener 'Aquarius' comes to mind here firstly - the sax line in a downbeat dialogue musically with harpist Julie Campiche.

It was just the timbre not necessarily the style, capisce. It's not jazz-rock by the way more a punk-ish avant spirit. Rock-like drumming on 'The Other's Share' anchors the whole thing. It's all very tasteful and could connect as easily with a classical sensibility as a jazz one. 'Aquarius' is the most exhiliarating of the tracks but there are surprises, the spoken word drawn from speeches by Greta Thunberg on 'Fridays of Hope' amounts to some but these admittedly don't add much.

The darker more elemental sections where the quartet sound becomes still and hovers is far more interesting. Campiche whose approach is far less spiritual-jazz aimed than say the stand out harpist this year Alina Bzhezhinska is with saxist Leo Fumagalli, bassist Manu Hagmann and drummer Clemens Kuratle who was excellent with Ydivide this year.

You Matter is an album easier to admire than to really buy into. But the overall effect to its credit of what could even be taken to be a suite-like approach given the integrity of the compositional ideas deftly unveiled is more significant than cherry picking best bits here and there.

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16.03.24 updated:

  • highlights this week on marlbank - Dan Pugach, pictured